Sam Brown, an Army veteran who was the heavy favorite in the Nevada Republican primary race for Senate even before former President Donald Trump’s last-minute endorsement, won the nomination on Tuesday, according to The Associated Press.
He will face Sen. Jacky Rosen, the state’s Democratic incumbent, in one of the most closely watched Senate contests of the year.
With 57% of the vote counted, Brown had 57%, lapping the crowded primary field. His closest rival, Jeff Gunter, a former U.S. ambassador to Iceland, had about 17%. Jim Marchant, a former state assemblyman, was at roughly 7%, and Tony Grady, an Air Force veteran, had 5%.
“Thank you, Nevada!” Brown posted on the social platform X, minutes after the news of his victory elicited a cheer from the assembled crowd at his campaign watch party in a hotel in Reno, Nevada. “Next stop: November 5th.”
The victory was redemption of sorts for Brown, who ran for the Senate in 2022 after moving to Reno from Dallas in 2018, but lost in the Republican primary to Adam Laxalt, the state’s former attorney general. This time, he was the pick of the Republican establishment from the start, and the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which works to elect Republicans to the Senate, backed him early and worked to clear the field of competitors.
They did not quite manage that. Roughly a dozen Republican challengers vied for the right to face Rosen, a low-profile Democrat running for reelection in a battleground state where recent elections have been decided by narrow margins.
But most gained little traction, and as Brown crisscrossed the country raising money and rallying support from prominent Republicans, the other candidates failed to come close to his fundraising totals. He also earned the endorsement of the state’s Republican governor, Joe Lombardo.
Brown ran as if he were already in the general election, skipping debates with his Republican opponents, avoiding tying himself too closely to the hard-line conservative wing of the party, and keeping his focus trained on Rosen, who clinched the Democratic nomination on Tuesday.
Rosen took aim at Brown after his victory Tuesday evening, and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which works to elect Democrats to the Senate, was quick to publish a digital advertisement bashing him.
“My opponent is a MAGA extremist who will say anything to get elected,” she said in a statement, rattling off a list of issues, like abortion, that she plans to attack him on. “Voters will have a clear choice in this race between a senator who always puts Nevadans first and a politician who only moved here a few years ago just to run for office.”
In the primary, Brown was slow to back Trump’s latest bid for the White House, a hesitation that did not go unnoticed among some Republicans, and Trump waited until the race’s final days to endorse him.
Rivals sensed an opening from the right, and in April, Gunter tried to shake up the race, announcing a multimillion-dollar advertising effort playing up his MAGA credentials while slamming Brown as insufficiently loyal to Trump. The attacks forced Brown and his allies to engage in the primary race for the first time, but it ultimately did little to alter the trajectory of the campaign.
Brown’s unique background could draw in voters. In 2008, he was nearly killed while serving in Afghanistan when his vehicle drove over a roadside bomb. He underwent more than 30 surgeries during a three-year recovery, and was left permanently scarred.
“Sam is an American hero who is once again answering the call to serve our country,” Sen. Steve Daines of Montana, who leads efforts to get Republicans elected to the Senate, said in a statement after Brown’s win.
Brown’s campaign will emphasize popular Republican talking points — border security and inflation — and lay the blame for the Nevada economy’s sluggish recovery from the pandemic at the feet of President Joe Biden and Rosen.
Rosen’s campaign plans to emphasize her bipartisan reputation and highlight times when she has defied Biden, who is unpopular in the state. She will point to victories on issues like lowering prescription drug prices while attacking Brown’s record on abortion rights.
In the past, Brown expressed support for a 20-week ban with no exceptions for rape or incest. After announcing his campaign for Senate, he clarified that he would not support a nationwide ban, and told The New York Times that the issue should be left to the states.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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